Is this thing … still on? After last week’s strangely enervated first-leg performance against Paris Saint-Germain at the Emirates Stadium it has been tempting to get a bit ahead of things, to see Arsenal’s season as already a zombie entity, still out there walking around the place, limbs twitching, skinny hands rattling the perimeter fence, not exactly dead, but not too far from undead.
On Monday night, even, Paris police declared Wednesday’s return leg at the Parc des Princes an event “of no particular concern”, as in no great flashpoints, no obvious tension. Just don’t tell Mikel Arteta that. And not just because rumours of the death of Arsenal’s season are widely exaggerated. There is even a nightmare scenario available to the club’s supporters, a product of the deep banter-verse, where Arsenal don’t make the Champions League next season but Tottenham do. All they need to do is keep losing while others win, and while slack, stitched-together Spurs bundle through Bodø/Glimt and a beta Manchester United, thereby banking their £100m jackpot while finishing 16th in the league.
